1. Field of the Invention
The invention is a flexible conduit and carrier assembly for conveying liquid such as local anesthetic under elevated pressure from a vial to a hollow needle adapted to be implanted in the tissue, particularly the gingival tissue of the mouth.
2. Brief Discussion of the Related Art
The applicant's U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,747,824 and 5,180,371 disclose apparatus and method by means of which local anesthetic can be administered virtually without pain into the tissues, particular the mouth. In accordance with this invention, a vial of anesthetic is mounted in a holster unit detachably mounted at a programmed and controllable pumping station which forces the anesthetic from the vial at predetermined flow rates with greater precision than can be achieved with conventional hand syringes. The holster includes means to pierce the rubber diaphragm of the vial and to convey the liquid through a flexible microbore tube to a handle assembly carrying a conventional hollow needle to inject the anesthetic into the tissue.
Such holster, flexible conduit and needle assemblies must be disposable for sanitary reasons and must, therefore be relatively inexpensive. On the other hand, they must be engineered so they can quickly and easily be mated with anesthetic vials and then attached to the pumping station and just as easily be disassembled and not infrequently re-loaded for use on the same patient. They must also be light in weight, able to withstand high liquid pressures and readily manipulated at difficult injection sites.
The object of the invention, therefore, is to provide an assembly which meets all of these difficult and somewhat incompatible design criteria.